


bury a friend

by bruisedbutlovely, Diamantspitzhacke (RedSoleWrites), monochromiac, RedMint_Tea



Series: Exquisite Corpses with the Angst Gang [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Death, Dream Smp, Dream Suffers, Gen, Ghost Floris | Fundy, Ghost Niki | Nihachu, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Horror, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements, Violence, angst gang roll out, niki wilbur and fundy are ghosts, sadness go brrr, the many mentioning of graveyards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27448039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruisedbutlovely/pseuds/bruisedbutlovely, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSoleWrites/pseuds/Diamantspitzhacke, https://archiveofourown.org/users/monochromiac/pseuds/monochromiac, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMint_Tea/pseuds/RedMint_Tea
Summary: There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server.They say it's where restless ghosts often linger.Dream pays it a visit.
Series: Exquisite Corpses with the Angst Gang [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005369
Comments: 130
Kudos: 205





	bury a friend

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to our first exquisite corpse! These are a style of writing where we each take turns writing segments of one overarching story. Hopefully they come together well into one giant whole!
> 
> Each break with "~~~" shows where we switched writers. The order is as follows:  
> bruisedbutlovely  
> Diamantspitzhacke  
> RedMint_Tea  
> monochromiac
> 
> Enjoy!

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where the gravestones have no names.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where people swear they hear voices.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where other claim to feel cold air in the middle of summer.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where Dream visited when the nights got long and the war plagued his mind.

The war was years ago and yet he swore he could still hear the voices of Fundy, Niki and Wilbur in his ears.

~~~

Tall tales have been passed around every member of the server about this nameless, faceless graveyard since its inception, and previously, Dream had paid them no mind.

What did it matter to him? He never visited. There were no 'restless spirits' to chase him with unfinished business.

But that was before the war, before Dream had killed with indiscriminate meaning.

Before Wilbur, Niki, and Fundy had all died by his blade.

He supposed it was the guilt that brought him to the graveyard now. He had watched each person's eyes dim in their final moments, seen their sparks snuffed out, and yet he still hadn't given the ones he left behind their independence.

Maybe that was why they spoke to him.

Whispering, murmuring, noises too faint and indistinct to understand but the voices familiar nonetheless. Maybe that's what they were saying, cursing him for leaving their dreams unfulfilled. He wasn't sure.

And that was the real reason he came back day after day. He needed to know what they spoke into the wind, what final message he was being haunted with.

~~~

No matter how many times he returned to the graveyard, the voices would never be clear to him. Always hearing the same lines over and over, his mind slowly started to crack and gain more and more confusion as he kept trying to decipher it. He knew he was at a point where he could – no, _had_ to find out the final message, and the reasoning why the final message was so hard to decode.

~~~

But even so, Dream did his best to cope. He’d come back to the grave every day holding flowers or another object of some sort. Life passed on in a blur, and sometimes he thought he was losing touch with reality. His dreams were filled with shrill cries of horror and fear mixed with blood oozing out of their wounds, jeering at him.

~~~

They chased him from his dreams to his nightmares and back again; it was like he could never escape them, no matter how hard he tried. They chased him into reality and they chased him when he fell asleep once again. Round and round in circles they went with the voices taunting him and Dream just trying to understand.

But sometimes, the voices were clearer. He once picked a berry and he could hear one of the voices. He once made a cake and he could hear one of the voices. He once made a potion and could hear one of the voices.

He just wanted to understand.

He just wanted to listen.

He visited the grave once again but this time he wasn't alone.

There, sitting in front of one of the unmarked graves, was Tommy.

~~~

It had been a long time since he last saw Tommy. They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms.

Dream winced at the memory of himself taunting the teen for his lost family. With time and distance, he had realized that he hadn't been in the right there, but he couldn't go back and change it now.

Dream took a deep breath and knelt down next to Tommy. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Tommy spoke.

"I can't tell whose is whose."

Dream didn't need to ask to know what Tommy was referring to. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he spotted a faint hint of orange darting by. He dismissed it for the time being.

"I'd hoped they would be buried somewhere nice. In the nation they died believing in, right? Well," Tommy laughed bitterly, "that turned out to be a pipe dream."

He finally looked up to face Dream, and though his face was dry, there was still a pain that knotted guilt in Dream's stomach. "Couldn't let us have anything, huh? Not our independence, not our dreams, not our – our _family_."

Dream stayed silent.

"Just give me something! Some kind of response that tells me that you're not the cold-blooded heartless bastard I think you are! Anything!"

~~~

Dream didn't know how to respond, he couldn't respond. He felt as though his voice would be raspy. It was like he didn't know how to talk. Staring. He wanted to give a response.

Tommy's expression was slightly unreadable, but it was obvious what he was going for.

"Why did you do this? Why did you separate us from our family, what went through that mind of yours that gave you the idea of taking us away from them, and them away from us?"

~~~

Silence. It was hard to tell his expression due to the smile mask covering his face, but Dream was emotionless. Numb, even. He’d question everyday that: was he the monster? He thought it was all just a game.

Until someone got hurt.

Tommy went silent and turned away from him.

“Tommy..., I-”

~~~

"Wilbur liked to joke I was his little brother," Tommy said flatly. "Said that it made me Fundy's uncle. Niki would always laugh, told Wil to stop scaring me and Fundy. But it was nice, to have that. It was nice to have a family."

There was a beat of silence.

"You took that away. You took that away when you killed them. And now," Tommy stood from the grave. "I can't even tell where they're buried. I can't even say goodbye."

Tommy finally looked at Dream. "I hope my discs were worth it.”

~~~

With that, the boy strode away, leaving the blank granite markers and the uncertainty of the graveyard behind.

Leaving Dream alone, with nobody but the smooth stone and bodies buried beneath as his only company.

There was a sardonic huff of laughter from directly behind his right shoulder. Dream scrambled to his feet, turning around, but there was nobody in sight. It was one of the echoes, louder and clearer than any he'd ever heard, he was sure of it. What that meant for him, though, he still didn't know.

"Hello?" he called to the empty air.

"It's about fucking time," Dream heard from behind him.

In all his bloody and revolutionary glory, Wilbur Soot was perched on the gravestone, holding his head in his hand.

~~~

Dream felt as though he was hallucinating this, despite knowing how real it was. He was face to face with the deceased President of the country he fought. The deceased President of L'Manburg was in front of his very eyes.

Seeing Tommy and then Wilbur made him wonder: _why, why did he do this, would he ever be able to go back...?_

_~~~_

Wilbur looked at Dream, unfazed. He got up from the gravestone and walked over to Dream, who stumbled back. He noted something strange about Wilbur’s form as he sauntered closer. _Like it didn’t seem real at all._

_~~~_

“You fought a war and you’re terrified of a little ghost?” Wilbur let out a laugh that sounded almost insane. “Kind of sad, Dream.”

“How are you here?” Dream was finally able to gasp out. Wilbur just smiled.

“I’m here because I’m dead, Dream. You killed me, after all.”

Wilbur took another step forward and Dream took another back, hitting another gravestone.

“I’m dead, Dream,” Wilbur whispered. “I can’t do anything to you.”

~~~

"None of us can."

Dream whirled to his left to see Niki, her hair stringy and chest bloody, the blue of her uniform blackened and stained.

"And it's all your fault," Fundy added from his left. His hat sat proudly atop his battered head, but that was barely still attached to his neck.

Dream felt claustrophobic as their solid-looking bodies closed in on him, passing through grave markers while Dream stumbled around them. Their expressions, hateful and so _wrong_ , filled his vision. He clutched his head, covering his ears to block out their ghostly words - it did nothing - as he crumbled to the ground.

"You did this to us."

"You did this to _them._ "

“And you’ll do it to yourself, too.”

~~~

"Are you happy with this?"

"We wanted a nation to ourselves."

"We wanted freedom."

"Why did you do this?"

"Was this right?"

The voices of the ghostly yet horrifying figures slowly faded back into the inaudible whispers that Dream had a hard time understanding.

The voices made him slowly start to succumb to slight insanity. Did he regret this, or had he started to crack?

~~~

He couldn’t take it anymore.

“NO!” Dream screamed out, and in a quick movement got up from his spot and jumped over the gravestone.

He ran. Ran as fast as he could. Ran as fast as his legs would take him away from there. Away from them.

Dream’s heart was beating rapidly in his chest and his breaths were heavy and loud as he ran.

He wouldn’t stop running. His mind was a spiral of thoughts, but his body kept moving.

~~~

When he finally ran out of energy, ran out of breath, he collapsed. the grass felt cool on his face before he flipped himself over, staring up at the sky.

But something caught Dream’s eye.

He sat up again and glanced behind him; it seemed like the creators wanted to torture him tonight as Dream found himself in front of Wilbur’s caravan.

It was half destroyed by decay and vines had started to weave their way around it. It loomed over Dream, casting a shadow onto him.

And before he could second-guess himself, Dream walked in.

~~~

The caravan was illuminated by shafts of moonlight peeking through the gaps in the roof. Brewing stands from its days as a drug distributor lay askew. Vials and bottles were shattered, their shards littering the floor like a minefield.

The destruction of the outside lands and the torn-down walls faded away as Dream trailed his hand along overgrown countertops. He spotted dark stains spattered along the ground.

He didn't want to think about what they were.

In the nighttime lighting, the caravan felt eerie. Like the ghosts belonged here almost more than the graveyard, and wasn't that funny? With his dynamite and his blade and his determination, Dream had created a cemetery for the very idea of L'Manberg.

"Isn't it sad?"

Wilbur's spirit ducked in through the door, meandering aimlessly around the room.

His eyes never met Dream's, instead staring nostalgically at the central table.

"All our sacrifices, our literal deaths, and this is all that remains."

His head shot up, and when Dream made eye contact, his eyes were dark and reminded Dream so much of the void that he shuddered. "This is all you let us keep."

~~~

Dream remembered all the scenes from the battle, the dynamite exploding, the screaming of those who had died to his grasp. He could have avoided this all.

"It's the only thing of ours that we still have. You took away the rest, you didn't let us have what we most wanted. Did you enjoy the massacre you caused among us, Dream?"

Dream could simply only stand there, paralyzed by something.

~~~

Dream knew. He knew he was the one at fault. He knew he was the one to blame. He knew he shouldn’t have let this war happen. People who were once his friends were dead because of him.

Wilbur smiled blankly. “What’s wrong, Dream?”

The man in question didn’t respond.

“You shouldn’t feel sad Dream, after all, you’re the reason this happened. Couldn’t leave us alone, huh?”

Dream’s body began to tremble, he felt a chill go through his spine.

Wilbur’s grin became even wider. “Well.”

“Guess that smile _was_ too wide to be real.”

~~~

"You trapped us here, Dream," Wilbur's smile became crazier, more...disturbing. Blood began to fall from his mouth as he stepped closer, pointing desperately to himself. "We can't leave! We're stuck here in the ruins of our failures!"

Wilbur opened his arms and Dream could see blood seeping into Wilbur's shirt and coat.

"You trapped us here! We were never put to rest!" Wilbur started to look more disfigured, like he was glitched or something. "We're trapped here!!! The void won't take us back."

"What?' Dream gasped out.

"The void can't take us back."

And then, like he was never there, Wilbur disappeared.

~~~

A cloud passed overhead, blocking out the moon and leaving the caravan in darkness. Pitch-black, surrounded by the reminders of his cruelty and the echoes of ghosts, Dream shuddered at his core.

Is this what he'd done?

Was this his legacy?

The tyrant, the murderer, the villain?

No, no, no, this couldn't be it. It couldn't be. He refused! Dream would not be remembered as the bad guy!

But then he remembered the look in Tommy's eyes. Remembered the quiet defeat that permeated the two remaining former rebels. Remembered the bloodstained figures perched statuesque atop their unmarked graves. And Dream knew that he'd made himself the villain.

There was nobody to blame for his story but himself.

He pushed himself out of the caravan, through the darkened night and back to the damned graveyard.

It always came back to the graveyard.

~~~

The graveyard had always been there, and it was always the graveyard.

He was a bad guy in one story, in another story, even in his own story, but there might be a chance to put those he had wronged to rest.

The whispers that he heard when he was there were constant reminders of something he wanted to forget so badly. He had to stop them, he had to end the legacy – it hurt Dream more and more as he recalled the events.

The blood, pain, suffering, and tired screams.

~~~

Dream mentally debated with himself. He wanted this nightmare to end, but he didn’t want to let go either.

But the gore, the screams, the anguish.

He had to stop it. No matter what.

 _It’s too late now,_ his treacherous mind whispered. _Give up._

_~~~_

The graveyard, as he stumbled in, seemed to warp around him, seemed to change as he tried to get their voices to stop, tried to get them to finally be quiet. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't breathe, and they were still there, still watching him.

With his breath hitching, Dream grabbed his pickaxe from his inventory and turned to a grave. Niki sat on top of it, a cut straight through her neck bleeding all over her uniform. She leaned forward, her hair red with her own blood.

"You trapped us here." Her voice echoed and followed him. "You did this to yourself."

"Just shut up!" Dream screamed and fell to his knees in front of the gravestone, carving out an 'N'.

Niki's form flickered. She smiled.

"Set us free."

~~~

The marker felt like cutting through diamond, Dream's pickaxe inching its way down the straight lines of letters of her name. As he continued his work on Niki's grave, her ghost above him stared unblinkingly. Her smile was far wider and crueler than the Niki he'd known in life.

Each finished letter glitched her figure, skewing shards of her body out of place for blinks of time, purple and green and every color that Niki was not supposed to be.

He scraped the final 'I' into place. When he lifted the blade of his pick from the stone, Niki's spirit let out a horrific screech, piercing straight through Dream's ears and directly into his brain. She glitched once more, but this time, instead of coming back into place, the shards dispersed and disappeared.

He heard a final whisper of thanks as he shuffled over to the next grave.

~~~

Moving on, Dream approached the grave which had a familiar fox perched on top of it. Fundy, staring at Dream and looking more inhuman and slier than ever. Taking a breath, Dream started to carve the letters with the same pick he had used before – this time, he was having a harder time.

He felt as if staring at him was a netherite sword, but he had to keep pushing on.

Now carving out the curved letters, he swore the staring started to get less and less intense. It was almost like the sword was just grazing at his skin.

The next curved letter was tough, but he managed. Keeping track of the glitching figure showed him his job was almost complete.

When he had carved out the 'Y', another scream emerged, to then be followed by a weakened “Thank you.”

~~~

Dream took a deep breath and looked over to what was next. Last but not least, Wilbur Soot.

The man was perched onto the gravestone like when he first saw him, anticipating.

Dream approached the grave and held his pickaxe increasingly tighter. He looked up at Wilbur, whose form was glitching an array of colours.

Dream, with much more strength started to carve the letters. But his hand felt like it couldn’t manage. He stared back up at Wilbur, who was smiling down at him with that same emotionless face.

“We’re so messed up even the void won’t take us.”

Dream ignored him, and persevered through, carving the ‘U’ down with increased force. His pick was lying on the spot where the ‘R’ would line up.

But then he looked up at Wilbur yet again.

“This is what you wanted, right?!”

The spirit only for a second looked confused, but then returned back to that smile.

“I’m letting it all go at last, SO YOU’D BETTER BE FREE.”

Dream finalized his point by finishing the ‘R’. The end to Wilbur.

A deafening scream pierced Dream’s ears, but he was numb to it now despite the ringing. Wilbur’s spirit glitched more and more, and Dream knew what was going to happen next, but he kept his eyes on the ground.

“Thank you.”

Dream’s eyes widened a little, but then went back to a neutral expression. He felt the pain in his heart go away and he felt a lot warmer now.

Was it over?

~~~

Dream looked up at the gravestone which now read "WILBUR" in blocky and messed up letters. Dropping his pickaxe to the ground, Dream reached forward and traced the letters gently with the tips of his fingers. His hand curled into a fist and his head dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

Eventually, he found the strength to stand once again but he didn't immediately leave the graveyard like he planned to so long ago. Instead, he walked towards a small patch of flowers that grew just outside the graveyard. 

Niki got a lily of the valley. It symbolized motherhood, purity, and sweetness.

Even during the war, her smile could warm a room.

Fundy got a blue orchid. It meant power and tranquility.

He was one of the best coders Dream ever knew.

Wilbur got a poppy. It meant sleep, peace, and death.

He only wanted peace and Dream couldn't even give it to him.

~~~

Suddenly, Dream felt hands on his shoulders. Burning, fiery, scorching hands. He cried out in pain, scrabbling to get them off.

Sharp fingers dug into his skin. Dream could feel their touch as if it were on his bare skin, even though he was wearing his thick sweatshirt.

He tried to turn to face whoever it was, but he was held firmly in place.

His heart sank as they started dragging him backwards. He shouted for help, kicking and driving his feet into the ground.

But there was nobody around for ages, not at this time of night. But the soil of the graveyard was soft, providing no traction for Dream.

A voice that was so close to familiar whispered in his ear: "You think that was all it took?"

They tugged on Dream, hard, throwing him down to their feet. It was Wilbur, but not. His voice was wrong, his eyes were wrong, his stance was wrong. Everything about him screamed inhuman.

Dream tried to scramble away, but he collided with another pair of legs instead. Fundy. The fox's head loomed over him, too-wide smile with too many teeth even creepier from upside-down. Fundy reached down, and with Niki's assistance (sharp hot fingers digging into his arms, eyes black and blank, voices sounding like a recording) hauled him to his feet.

"It takes sacrifice to send souls to rest," Not-Wilbur proclaimed like the tolling of a bell.

"Especially ones the void has rejected," Not-Fundy added, pushing his face too close to Dream's.

"And there has been no sacrifice," Not-Niki finished, pulling out a quartet of flowers: a tansy, a hydrangea, a sprout of bird's-foot trefoil, and an asphodel blossom.

The bouquet was shoved into his hands, Dream grasping them with confusion and no small amount of dread. He didn't know what was going on. He thought he'd fixed things! Saved his friends!

"And this seems fitting, does it not?" All three chorused at once, their voices overlapping and combining into one.

With a flourish, Not-Wilbur pulled a sword from nowhere, the other two impostors tightening their grips on Dream. He struggled fruitlessly in their arms. What was coming for Dream was obvious.

Not-Wilbur stared him directly in the eyes, never blinking, as he oh-so-slowly shoved the sword into Dream's chest. How he managed it, Dream wasn't sure - he knew from experience that it took a lot of strength to impale someone along the ribcage - but he was too gripped by agony to put much thought into it. The mechanics of his death didn't really matter, not when he was actively dying.

Not-Fundy and Not-Niki marched him backwards, Dream's feet dragging limply on the grass, the sword still running him through. The fight bled out of him with his actual blood. It was too late.

They dropped him unceremoniously, and Dream found himself surprised by the distance he fell. Down, down, down, deep into an already-dug grave of his own. Another burst of hot fire flared in his chest as the impact jostled the sword. He looked upwards.

The three wraiths peered over his final resting place, their faces shadowed but black eyes still gleaming. Slowly, without any of them moving, dirt started piling in. Dream spluttered but didn't fight more than that. He just stared at them, helplessly, hopelessly.

As the last bits of dirt threw themselves over his face, Dream closed his eyes one final time.

With the hilt of the sword jutting out of the top of the earth, the legend, the villain, the monster, the man, Dream died.

The gravestone stayed blank and unnamed.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where an old sword peeks from the ground.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where people claim to feel eyes watching them.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where others swear the owner disappeared.

There is a graveyard in the back of the SMP server where only three gravestones bear names.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the end of the story! Not sure how long it took us in total, but it was a really fun time.  
> Since we're most definitely going to be doing more of these in the future, feel free to leave prompts in the comments below! We might just end up using it in our next round of writing.  
> Thank you all for reading!  
> \- the angst gang


End file.
